The Fourth Dance
by jetplanejane
Summary: When Sara's in trouble, her father has Kellerman and Daniel Hale deal with it. But Kellerman takes advantage of Sara's drug addiction, using and abusing her. Hale wants to help her, but she's not ready to accept his offer. Non-con Kellerman/Sara.


_The original version of this fic contains sexually explicit content which has been censored to meet FFN's rules. If you'd like to read the uncensored story, a link is available via my profile page._

_Content warning: sexual assault, non-con, dub-con and drug addiction/use._

* * *

She falls in love in with strangers and wakes up in strange places. She's spread-eagled face-down on the bed, her left wrist shackled to the wrought-iron bed frame. Her vision swims, but the keys don't bob to the surface of the floating room. There's something familiar about this place; she's been here before.

Fishing her phone out from a fold in the sheets, Sara speed-dials the loneliest number. "Dad?"

"What is it, Sara?" Frank Tancredi – big, important, busy man – lifts his head so the make-up artist can powder away his double-chin. He's going to be on live TV in five minutes.

"I...I'm stuck, I don't know where. I feel sick."

He shoos the make-up artist away and plucks the tissue paper from his shirt collar. His campaign people tell him the red tie and suspenders project a Larry King reliability; someone you can trust. "Are you in jail? I warned you, Sara."

She should cut the call and dial two. Bruce Bennett would find her, but she's too ashamed. Sara still has some shame and she tells herself she's saving it for a rainy day. "Come get me." It's a challenge, not a plea. _I dare you to care about me more than you do some stupid ballot_.

Her father hands the phone to his aide. "It's Sara. Handle it."

Paul Kellerman smiles obligingly. "Yes, sir, of course."

* * *

Last night she was so high she had to be tethered, cuffed to a bed and fucked – fucked-_up_. Sara's naked from the waist down, ejaculate crusted between her thighs. Her lips are cracked; the corners caked with dried saliva, and her mouth tastes like something took a shit in it and then died. Her skin feels hot and she's thirsty. Beneath her, the sheet feels silky and she slides her palm over the fabric, savoring its coolness. Sara curls up and tries to sleep.

"Hi, Sara. Rough night?" She dreads the sound of Kellerman's smug voice in her ear and welcomes it simultaneously. That bastard is going to fix everything.

"Where am I?"

"At home, in your bed." He unlocks the handcuffs (the keys were on the nightstand the whole time) and tucks the sheet around her. Sara throws up on the pillow, grainy vomit sticking in her hair.

"You know, one of these days," he observes, scooping her into his arms, "we're going to find you dead in your own puke."

"You'd love that."

"Actually, no, because I'd have to clean it up." Kellerman sits her in the bath and turns on the water, the cold spray from the shower overhead hitting her at full blast. This is the part where she'll cuss him out for five minutes and he'll sit on the edge of the toilet, arrogant and amused. This time she doesn't give him the pleasure. She stares back at him, pathetic-looking but resolute, her ears protruding from her wet hair plastered to her head and shoulders, the soaking sheet clinging to her legs.

"I've got to hand it to your father. If you were my daughter I would've written you off a long time ago."

Well, she can't argue with that. She sits in the tub until all her sins have washed away and she's shivering, her skin dimpled with gooseflesh; her baptism complete. Someone will hand her a towel and a change of clothes, and it's usually Hale. She likes him. He has a wife and two-point-five kids. She used to know their names and ask after them, but the drugs make her care less about everything.

Sara dresses and brushes the dead thing out of her mouth. She scrubs so hard with the toothbrush that she tastes blood on her tongue and she's sure she'll never taste anything ever again. When she steps out of the bathroom she looks like a shiny new penny. She's danced a dance.

Now she'll dance another one.

* * *

Kellerman sets the two baggies of heroin down on the table in the corner of Sara's kitchen. "One for now, one for later. It's premium shit, Sara – only the best for you, princess." He smirks. "Unless you'd prefer to get caught stealing from the hospital pharmacy again. You've already lost your medical license, but between you and me and Danny over there I don't think Daddy's going to be able to keep you out of jail the next time."

"Paul," his partner cautions.

"_Danny._ Sara's a grown woman, she can decide for herself."

It's the easiest decision she'll ever make; she reaches for the narcotics. This doesn't surprise her or disappoint Kellerman. Everyone is satisfied with the outcome, except Hale.

As Sara takes the dope, Kellerman grabs her wrist – the same one that was cuffed to the bed. "Not so fast. You didn't say the magic word."

"Please."

"Please what?" He smiles; he's enjoying this.

She smiles, too. He's enjoying this _too_ much. "Please go fuck yourself."

Sometimes she still manages to surprise him (herself, too). No longer amused, Kellerman strikes like a snake, rising out of his chair and twisting Sara's arm behind her back. He pushes her into the table, her hip bone bruising against the edge. "That's cute – you're really cute. Now say the magic words."

"That's enough, Paul," Danny warns, distinctly uncomfortable.

"Shut up, Danny."

"I'm not going to beg," Sara says, quietly enduring the aggression and humiliation.

"You don't have to beg, you just have to bend over." He places his palm between her shoulder blades and pushes her down. Sara reaches out to brace herself, the fingers of her right hand splayed on the table, the others closing around the little parcels of pretty white powder. Kellerman tugs his belt buckle loose and works the button on Sara's jeans, yanking them and her underwear off her ass. Over his shoulder, he says, "Didn't figure you for the voyeur type, Danny. You gonna watch?"

Embarrassed, his partner retreats hastily to the living room, leaving Sara alone with Kellerman at the table.

"_He doesn't care! He cut my allowance and I need! I need..."_

"_Shh-sh-sh. I know, I know. It's okay, Sara."_

It _had_ seemed okay, then. It had seemed reasonable, sitting in his car outside her sorority house. The way he'd looked at her, the way he'd touched her. It had been gentle, not unkind. He'd told her she was beautiful (she was a mess). He'd told her he cared for her (he's never given a shit about her). He had the amphetamines she'd started on. So she'd put her hand in his pants and fisted him off.

It's just a means to an end, she tells herself. But she doesn't believe that. She doesn't want this. She wants him to _stop_ and get the fuck away from her. She wants what's in her palm a little more. Sara tries not to think about the iron grip of his hands on her hips, her involuntary slick-heat arousal and the pleasure-pain fullness of him. Sara grits her teeth and concentrates on the hard edges of the plastic baggies digging into the skin of her palm. Redemption and release.

He climaxes, finally, and withdraws from her, tucking himself back in his pants. "Most of the time, I can't even get it up. But with you? For what it's worth, Sara, you get me hard. You're a good fuck." He smirks and smacks her ass, hard.

"You're a lousy fuck, Paul." _A lousy fucking_ fuck! Sara wants to scream and throw up. She thinks about getting smacked and smack and getting high. It's the only thing keeping her from crying. Maybe she'll cry anyway. Maybe she'll cry into the spoon filled with bubbling, dissolving dope. A new high off her old low.

* * *

Hale watches Sara fill the syringe. This is the third dance of the morning. Allison always did say he was clumsy, but that doesn't stop him from trying.

"This is wrong: what he's doing, what you're doing – to yourself. What your _father_ is doing." _G-d, my daughter – I would never!_

"I've done worse things, believe me," says Sara, pulling her knee up beneath her chin, preparing to inject herself between her toes.

"You can get help – _I_ can help you. I know a guy –"

"I know a guy, too. Everyone knows a guy, Danny. You want to know something? I don't want help. The way things are now, they're not perfect, but they're predictable. I like that. I _need_ this."

He watches her depress the syringe plunger and the rush comes. Her big brown eyes dilate until they're mostly pupil. "Sara?"

Her chin lolls against her chest and Hale lifts her up and carries her to the couch, laying her down. This is where they find her most days; it's why she hardly recognizes her own bedroom. He doesn't want to leave her; one day he's going to come back and find her choked on her own vomit (Kellerman's right about that).

* * *

The fourth dance belongs to Hale. He slides the card of the guy he knows across the coffee table and tucks it beneath a thick candle. He leaves one each time. He wonders if she stashes them somewhere or throws them out with the used needles. Maybe one day Sara will dance with him. Maybe she'll call the number on the card.


End file.
